Uber wants to resume the car tests on public roads

DETROIT – About eight months after an autonomous test vehicle hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, Uber wants to continue testing on public roads.

The company has filed an application with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to test in Pittsburgh, and it has issued a detailed safety report in which it places two human replacement drivers in each vehicle and takes a number of other precautions to secure the vehicles ,

Company officials admit that after the March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona, in which Elaine Herzberg, 49, was killed, she must come a long way to restore public trust when she sees a dark street outside Crossing pedestrian crossing.

The police said that Uber's backup driver in the Volvo autonomous SUV was disrupting the television program "The Voice" on her cell phone and looking down from the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board said the Volvo's autonomous driving system had detected Herzberg about six seconds before the impact, but did not stop because the system, which automatically brakes in potentially dangerous situations, has been disabled. A Volvo emergency braking system was also switched off.

"Our goal is to really work to regain that trust and help drive the industry forward," said Noah Zych, Uber's Systems Safety Director for self-driving cars, in an interview. "We think the right thing is to be open and transparent, which we do."

In addition to the other precautions, Uber will turn on the autonomous vehicle system in San Francisco at any time and will enable Volvo's automatic emergency braking system as a backup.

According to a 70-page safety report released by the company on Friday, Uber also demands more technical training and more expertise from the people behind the wheel of the vehicles.

The report was released after the hail-based company closed its autonomous vehicle tests to conduct an internal review of its safety procedures and an external review by risk management company LeClairRyan.